7 pax moseyed around facilities of Olde Providence in search of fitness. Here is what they found:
The Thang:
Mosey to the field for
COP:
Now, sufficiently warm, mosey across the field and through the Woods, not to Gramma’s house but to
the Hill on Foxcroft
Mosey back through the woods and across the fields to the
Playground
Mosey back to the field for
Pax Choice
Done
COT
Moleskin:
It is well known that YHC hates running, and I’ve been pretty successful at avoiding it for the past few months. That said, its value is recognized, so I decided to work some into today’s workout. But, true to my Tweeted word, there was no running, only a lot of moseying.
The pax were treated to a few new “dynamic warmup” exercises today – walking lunges and Toy Soldier. It’s amazing what you can find on the internet. Just thank Low Tide for being my guinea pig earlier this week and culling out some of the less masculine options.
The duck walks and frog jumps are so much harder than they look. Add in all the jump squats we did today and we may be in for some sore quads about this time tomorrow.
The Hill work was good. First time for Ascent. Blitzen and Weeblo were noted for killin’ it. Nice work by the entire pax. That hill isn’t too imposing; however, it’s more of a long, slow climb that sneaks up on you.
By the time we were halfway through our playground rotation, I think we all realized we had done enough jump squats and Mary for the day. We did audible the jump squats down to regular squats and started mixing up the Mary work.
Pax Choice was fun and another first for Ascent. For our debut, we were introduced to the Butterfly Situp. We agreed it was awkward, and it prompted one pax to begin working on his “back blast”. And, in a first, we had a 10-count called as an exercise — way to moderate!
Lots of fun today, guys. Thanks for allowing me to Q; it’s always an honor.
Written by and posted on behalf of Gummy (QIC)
Warmup
8 pax gathered and resolved to start their year off right with some synchronized movements and a few burpees. Here’s what they did:
The Thang:
COP:
While the weinke called for the pax to be split into three groups and rotate through a 3-station starfish, an audible was called to keep the pax together and foster more 2nd F, if not more work.
Station 1 – The Playground:
Slow mosey to station 2
Station 2 – Concession Stand
Mosey to station 3
Station 3 – The Fence
Mary:
People’s Chair
COT
Moleskin:
YHC typically only Q’s at moderate sites, Ascent and Basecamp, so the pressure was on to deliver a Hydra-worthy beatdown. Knowing that Hydra pax can number from ~15-30 or so, the weinke was planned to split the pax into 3 groups and run a 3-station starfish. This would provide some recovery time between exercises, so that too was taken into consideration on the weinke. With the smaller pax size today, 3 groups would have eliminated all 2nd F, so an audible was called to keep the pax together. The downside: there was less recovery between exercises. At several times, YHC kept hearing “don’t Q it if you can’t do it” in his head. Thankfully, the only modification YHC had to make was to split Station 1 reps into 2 subsets. And, no birds were fed this gloomy morning…
As for mumble-chatter, YHC will have to leave it to the pax to sound off below, as minimal chatter was heard over the voices in his head (and the blood pounding)…
Thanks as always for the opportunity to lead the pax today. It’s an honor.
Aye!
Roll Tide!!
Announcements:
A record 16 pax met at Ascent for a moderate workout or maybe for the promise of minimal running. One of those objectives may have been achieved…
The Thang
COP:
Mosey to the playground
Cindy
Mosey around the ballfield to catch our breath
Mary (in cadence):
KB & running circuits
Audible – due to the record number of pax and only 7 KB/DB – partner up
Set 1 (~8 min):
Set 2 (~6 min):
Set 3 (~5 min):
Moderate work:
Done
COT
Moleskin:
YHC had pre-blasted on Twitter to bring KB/DBs and advertising minimal running. YHC neglected to preblast on the website, so some pax missed the call for KBs. No matter, Champagne brought 4(!) and we were able to partner up for some 2nd F while we worked. And worked we did…
The CrossFit “nasty girl” Cindy has become a quarterly benchmark workout for Ascent, providing the pax with a chance to gauge our progress, in addition to working on our pullup capacity, a softly stated goal at Ascent. Pax are/were strongly encouraged to modify as needed, using supine pullups or taking breathers, whatever; but no matter, Cindy is not moderate. When he could focus, YHC noted some strong effort out there by all! T-claps, guys!
As an added bonus, after Gummy’s 8 min cycle last week through the same exercises as Cindy, and now this week, the pax is ready for the Partner Murph on Jan 11!
A light jog and then an early Mary session allowed us to recover from Cindy, and the pax was ready for the KBs.
With the record number of pax and the previously unknown number of coupons (KB/DBs) (#SPEARHEADlingo), a quick audible to partner got us to 8 pairs and 7 coupons. Mix in a little unplanned running, and we were pretty much there. The pax were treated to mix of familiar KB exercises, like 2-handed swings, some vaguely familiar ones, like single-leg Romanian deadlifts (which challenged our stability), and strange new ones, like the Viking (thanks again, TR).
Thanks, all, for your partnering and sharing of the weights; I think everyone got a fair amount of work in, based on the mumblechatter. And, hopefully the running wasn’t too much, esp since the preblast promised a low volume of running.
Speaking of mumblechatter, there were a few questions of “where’s the moderate?”, and that’s fair. When the Cindy benchmark is run, Ascent isn’t so moderate, even though you can moderate it on your own during the timed event. That said, it is about the hardest workout we run at Ascent. Most are more moderate, so don’t let today’s workout discourage you!
Thanks for the privilege of leading today. It’s an honor.
Announcements:
Ascent will converge next week, 12/28, at the Rock.
Jan 4 – general Area 51 convergence at Joe Davis Memorial 5k run. See details on our website.
Jan 10/11 – 2nd F on Friday night for a showing of the Lone Survivor movie and then all Area 51 Saturday workouts are running The Murph workout. Ascent will participate with a Partner Murph, effectively cutting the workout in half.
Young Life – Robin Hood mentioned a 5k in the spring (March?) and a family camping weekend over Mother’s Day weekend. (Robin Hood or Blitzen – please sound off in comments below with corrections or more details, if available.)
Thanks, Slim Fast for your closing prayer.
Merry Christmas!!
(Backblast write-up by Gummy. Delayed posting by High Tide.)
Mosey to the baseball field
Baseball suicides to 1B, 2B, 3B, Home
Mosey to the playground
She Hate Me #1 (modeled after the upcoming Murph Saturday):
Grab some wall at the school
A Tidal surge was forecast for Hydra after YHC took the call from 49er, who was himself “under the weather”. (feel better soon!) 9 pax ignored the #cantore warning, while Search & Rescue continues to look for MallCop, who may be lost at sea.
The Thang:
COP:
YHC had planned a 4-station starfish workout today, expecting higher numbers of pax, with two upper body and two lower body stations. With a more intimate number of pax, we audibled to 2 groups and ran upper body and lower body circuits instead.
Upper Body Circuit:
Playground:
Fence around far baseball field:
5 burpees on the big field as you transition between stations
Rinse & repeat for 18 minutes
Lower Body Circuit:
Concession stand area:
Area near far baseball field:
5 burpees on the big field as you transition between stations
Rinse & repeat for 17 minutes
Mary:
COT
Moleskin:
Rookie Q at Hydra for YHC, having previously Q’ed only moderately at Ascent and BaseCamp, so the pressure was on. Living up to the high standards of Hydra and without the benefit of a whistle, YHC had a restless night’s sleep, waking up twice thinking he had overslept.
Knowing the Hydra layout well from Ascent duties, YHC was concerned about the typically larger # of pax at Hydra and keeping the groups small enough to work in the stations desired, so the plan was for a 4-station starfish to accomodate 30-40 pax. With only 9 strong pax on hand, those would have been 4 pretty lonely groups, so YHC opted to combine them into 2 groups to better facilitate the 2nd F.
(Speaking of the smaller number of pax, YHC began to wonder whether his reputation preceeded him, but later convinced himself it must have been the weather or the HDHH…)
Learning of the day: the fence around the ball fields are much higher when you are not standing on a deep pile of mulch as when you’re on the playground. So, the decline knerkins had much more decline to them than originally planned. #underpromiseoverdeliver
Lots of strong work by the pax today. From the back of the pax, YHC has yet to learn the shape of everyone’s head, but Hopper, Iron Horse, Gummy were identified as out front, among others. T-claps!
Finally, several pax mentioned the strong HC from Mall Cop, so we know he must have been on the other side of the field, although we never saw him at the burpee transition zone. Shout out in the Comments below if you find him… #neverleaveamanbehind
Thanks for the opportunity to lead today. It was an honor!
16 pax began their weekly climb from Basecamp with an overall body beatdown and some earned extra credit along the way.
The Thang
Mosey down to the far left baseball field for COP:
Number off in 2’s for circuit work
Circuit 1:
Plank-o-rama (to catch our breath)(and work on the laundry sitting on our washboards)
Circuit 2:
Jack Webb – up to 7 merkins/ 30 raises
COT
Moleskin:
Great work by all the pax today. Everyone was really pushing themselves today, and that’s all you can ask and is what makes us stronger.
A litte more running than YHC really wanted, but you can’t have two stations much closer. And, truth be told, we (I) probably needed it. And, Frog Jumps are much harder than they seem they should be.
YHC introduced Iso Squat Jumps to the pax today and discovered my clarity could use some clarification. As YHC was rotating through the baseball field station, a couple of the pax already (still) there asked for clarification on the Iso Squat Jumps – specifically, what counts as one rep – as they didn’t understand how they were “getting lapped”. The idea was to Squat down and hold for 10 seconds and then do 10 Squat Jumps. That’s it. Several pax were counting that as 1 rep and attempting to do 10 “reps” (sets)! Low Tide stopped after 4 rep/sets, and I suppose others were somewhere near that too. After the clarification, 1 rep/set of a 10 sec hold + 10 jumps, we laughed that 10 rep/sets would be for the advanced class… Sound off in the comments for your extra credit for the extra work!
While in the Plank-o-rama, it was rather quiet as we were holding/straining for seconds and minutes on end, so YHC asked for any stories or jokes to keep our mind off our pain. YHC got the pain instead, as he was reminded of his last Q at Basecamp, and how, in an effort to make it interesting, and looking forward to the beginning of football season, ran the pax through an Alabama National Championship themed workout. The weekend’s Alabama-Auburn game hardly seemed just punishment, however, as the pax seemed mildly entertained at the time…or at least they weren’t concerned about their reps.
Thanks as always for the opportunity to lead. It’s an honor.
5 pax took on the Beast and other assorted trials as a warm-up to their weekend.
The Thang:
Jog around concession stand and baseball field and back to front field
COP:
The Beast:
Playground:
Baseball field:
Concession Stand:
Playground:
Switch over to Low Tide as Q
Mary:
Time’s Up
COT
Moleskin:
The small number of pax didn’t lend itself to lots of mubblechatter, or maybe it was the Beast that suppressed it. YHC has got to remember to build in more opportunities to catch our breath, but we made due with several 10 counts.
Merkins on our knuckles were introduced, and we decided they needed an appropriate name – Knerkins seemed to fit.
Also introduced were knees-to-elbows, where we learned Bubbles does them all the time when visiting the Fern and shared his tips with the pax (control your swing).
No new announcements.
In honor of the guys running Thunder Road this morning, the Ascent Pax worked in a lot of running as we toured the campus of Olde Providence Elementary.
Mosey to concession area
Plank-o-Rama in the infield
Good work this morning on the soggy fields of Olde Providence. I heard some serious heavy breathing and grunting, so I think mission accomplished. Thanks to Turntable for making the trip across the border from metro to the south land. Great work by FNG Weed.
Posted by High Tide on behalf of Gummy.
6 pax shook off the #fartsack to move some iron and sharpen themselves.
The Thang:
COP:
Mosey to YHC’s car for various coupons and continue on to the playground but very little playing.
Circuit 1:
Jog around the baseball field and gather up outside of 1st base.
Circuit 2:
Circuit 3:
Jog around & thru baseball field to catch our breath
Circuit 4:
Jog around & thru the baseball field
Circuit 5:
Mary:
3 minutes left – People’s Chair, Plankorama, People’s Chair
COT
Announcements:
Moleskin:
Great work today! Not a lot of mumblechatter today, more attributable to the lack of O2 than the small number of pax. YHC had planned on low reps in an attempt to moderate the workload, but we still moved a lot of weight. #smoked Need to intensify the moderation, although most pax did a good job of modifying as needed, which is/was strongly encouraged.
Upholding the Area51 #fashionpolice tradition, pax ranged from shorts and tee shirt only (#polarbearplungecandidate) to YHC, who overdressed with 2 layers top and bottom, which were quickly shed, getting down to a more acceptable short/leggings & long sleeve w fleece. Everyone left with their man cards intact.
Keep coming out, pushing yourself, and modifying as necessary. You’ll improve your fitness and have a lot of fun in the process.
Thanks as always for the opportunity to lead today. It’s an honor.